Want the game to get better: Clarke

Calcutta: Michael Clarke only wants the game to get better and is not reading much into the structural changes at the International Cricket Council (ICC).

But is he keeping a track of what’s going on in the ICC? “I am trying not to until things are finalised,” he said in Sydney on Wednesday before his departure for South Africa.

“We all know what’s happening. I am trying not to get involved and believing everything I am reading.”

The Australian captain is keeping faith in the administrators. “I can only want the game to get better. I think, personally, the game is in a fantastic place right now. I want the game to grow, I want to see many boys and girls playing the game. I want the game to climb to the top of the tree.

“There are various boards across the globe who have ambitions of taking the game to new heights. Being the captain of Australia, I also want the same.

“There are enough experts in roles to take vital decisions. I am certainly not one of them. My job is to get back to the game as soon as possible and bring more and more success to the team.

“I don’t want to get into that until things are finalised, and I know what are the decisions that were taken. I am confident that whatever the decisions will be, they will be in the best interest of the game at heart,” explained Clarke.

Not many cricketers have come out in support of the proposals with Clive Lloyd and Martin Crowe making their displeasure public.

Dr Ali Bacher, the former managing director of the first South African board after reunification, came out in support of the argument being made by former ICC president Ehsan Mani.

In a letter to Alan Isaac, the current president of the ICC, the former South Africa captain reminded him of the “animosity” that existed particularly in the Asian subcontinent and the Caribbean, when England and Australia had the veto in the ICC.

He said that the working group position paper, if accepted, would “lead to division and strife in world cricket as never seen before.”

Crowe also didn’t mince words. “I endorse wholeheartedly the letter by Mani to the ICC regards their position paper,” Crowe said .

A “working group position paper” from the ICC’s Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA) proposed a structural overhaul of world cricket, which would give decision-making power and a larger share of revenues to the BCCI, the ECB and Cricket Australia.